As a young (relatively, 21) female student working in tech I notice that gender is very rarely made explicit. In jobs before I met someone upon hearing my name they automatically assumed I was a boy. I noticed that the profile page asks for a website, location, age, and name. Name in some cases can be used to identify gender for example "Katie" is unlikely to be a male identified individual whereas "Thomas" probably is. So it isn't as if gender / identity are entirely unknown. Rather they are simply even less obvious. I also notice that very few profiles address it.

Perhaps because they are male and know the assumption is that they are, or if they are female they prefer not to point it out as a difference / point of contention with some individuals. As much as we would all like there are still individuals with gender bias. Of course it may also be the case that those individuals simply don't care.

Given the questions, confusion, and avoidance of continuing a "automatically male unless proven female" way of communicating why is it that Stack Exchange doesn't list gender on profiles? Of course this could become an issue for non-gendered / trans / queer / or other perhaps gender fluctuating or transcending individuals.

I know that perhaps some people may not want to disclose this but in the same way they do not need to disclose a website. Some individuals may also choose a gender to create an artificial profile however still this doesn't seem to be a major issue. Is it due to issues of discrimination from recruiters / companies etc? I know companies cannot hire based on gender (or at least they aren't supposed to).

Or was it simply not the intent of Stack Exchange to disclose gender? It seems (I could be wrong) that in a sense removing gender doesn't help make women any more visible in tech, nor does it remove the "all male" stereotypes.

It isn't that I'm particularly bothered by it rather I wonder given the fact that many people are concerned with what types of pronouns to use for people wouldn't it be easier to allow individuals (relatively low cost) to add their gender if they so choose?

Is it inappropriate to ask individuals for their gender, or make yours obviously known in say your profile? Essentially I'm curious as to why gender is not considered relevant but something like age or full name is.

Would you want a feature like this? Mrs, Ms, Miss, Mz were created to denote or conceal the knowledge of a woman's marital status. Many men promoted non-specific titles to remove the awkwardness of getting it wrong. I think gender could serve a similar role.

Due to certain individuals comments I would like to state that this is really a food for thought question. It is not about my experiences in tech etc. I am asking it to provoke discussion not be critiqued personally.

However when comments like these:

Maybe you'll get somewhere when you drop that "they treat me bad
because I'm a woman" attitude. When nobody knows you are a female.

are the reactions to women asking questions about gender in tech related sites, I think it proves there are discussions to have.

People are well within their rights to make clear their gender, or withhold their gender, within their profile free text. On the first of your links - a recent spirited discussion! - some female members of the community explained they display their gender proudly, and others have said they are cautious about doing so. Thus, I think it is right that it is a personal choice.
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halferJul 11 '14 at 23:03

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On the Internet, nobody knows you are a dog. If you want to be addressed the "proper" way then you have to make it obvious. You can't pick a more obvious first name, I guess, use an avatar so it is crystal clear to everybody.
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Hans PassantJul 11 '14 at 23:05

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I guest my biggest question is really why do we include things like full name which can signal gender, or age while avoiding a gender portion of the profile. Why not include that box? Many forum sites do include such information. Is it considered irrelevant, or nosy? Is tech too cool ;)?
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Tai HirabayashiJul 11 '14 at 23:05

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Btw, in case it is not clear, the 'real name' field is not publicly displayed, so the only indication of someone's gender would be from their username, and of course people can choose an alias (as I do).
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halferJul 11 '14 at 23:06

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Because it is completely irrelevant here. We don't care who asks a question or who answers it. Only the question matters.
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Hans PassantJul 11 '14 at 23:08

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@HansPassant ok but then why does age matter?
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Tai HirabayashiJul 11 '14 at 23:08

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Because that actually matters. Children 13 years old or less cannot participate here. There are laws about that.
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Hans PassantJul 11 '14 at 23:11

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I think the real reason is because unicorns don't have a gender.
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Cole JohnsonJul 11 '14 at 23:25

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Just leaving a note here to say that this isn't getting ignored by Stack Exchange... The question of gender comes up periodically around here. It feels like it's been more frequent of late, and perhaps with good reason. The nature of the tech field is such that it currently tends to be represented by men and while I am certain that everyone responding here has the best intentions, I feel it is time I write up a response as a female developer who also happens to work at SE. I will formulate a more detailed and hopefully coherent response to this post over the weekend and post it as an answer.
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Anna Lear♦Jul 12 '14 at 0:04

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In the meantime, if anyone feels the burning need to explain how women should just feel more comfortable because they're obviously imagining any mistreatment... please don't. Save me from having to put my moderator hat back on on a Friday night. Thanks.
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Anna Lear♦Jul 12 '14 at 0:05

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Anna is Russian. She has ways to make users disappear...
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CupcakeJul 12 '14 at 0:24

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I'm British, and I have ways to make @cupcakes disappear (chomp) :-p
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halferJul 12 '14 at 0:31

@HansPassant It cannot possibly be the case that age is included in profiles for legal reasons, because it's not mandatory and the site doesn't even allow you to enter an age less than the legal limit of 13 years old!
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Jeremy Banks♦Jul 12 '14 at 1:00

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I find it actually rather good that SO is one of the few sites where you can have a very minimalistic profile. How many other places insist on having your date of birth for no real reason? I mean, do we really have to give your real exact date of birth to say you are now over 13 or 18? Since it's self-certified anyway, it never really proves anything, but it does help fraudsters if that is leaked somehow (considering that it's also meant to be a security question in some places too...).
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BrunoJul 12 '14 at 1:10

6 Answers
6

By the time I'm writing this, we picked up a couple responses from other female SO contributors. This in itself is somewhat notable. A couple of years ago that probably would not have happened as there simply weren't (m)any women who were, if nothing else, active on meta. So hey, progress!

Why doesn't Stack Overflow have a gender field? I honestly don't know what the original decision behind that was or whether it was made consciously in the first place. If I was going to guess based on what I know about the overall mission and the original dev team, I'm gonna go with echoing the other answers: we try as much as possible to divert attention away from who is posting and channel it towards what the post is.

Now, a lot of things have changed since that time and Stack Overflow has been evolving, so is it time to add a gender field? To me the real question is, what would doing so add to everyone's experience with the site? As with any new feature, we have to consider all possible implications. In this case, for one, we might inadvertently reinforce negative stereotypes, and there are various other potential drawbacks. I think Kate Gregory really hit the nail on the head there:

Because some people want to hide their gender. Because some people don't have a simple answer to the question. Because some people think they know something about me after I answer that question, and they really don't.

Sure, you could make a similar argument for name, age, and so on. However, gender tends to be one of the most polarizing bits of personal information one can reveal about themselves, especially in a field that is unfortunately notorious for inequality in the gender department. Nobody says, for example, that people under 30 suck at math.

It would be idealistic at best to say that real-life biases somehow disappear just because we're on the Internet, but I like to think that Stack Overflow is one of the few places that exist right now where we can all be on equal footing. To that end, a more free-form profile that doesn't push anyone towards either end of the gender spectrum for the sake of filling out all the fields is a better way to go.

@JeffAtwood Well, what d'ya know... :) What's the equivalent of Rule 34 along the lines of "if it exists, there's probably a blog post on it on the Internet"?
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Anna Lear♦Jul 19 '14 at 0:15

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Why have age? Seems inconsequential to the posts if we are focused on content rather than the person. Might as well remove it all.
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staticxJul 24 '14 at 15:45

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@staticx Age actually does matter. Children under the age of 13 cannot legally participate in this site, unless it is through the supervised use of a parent's profile. Please see the full discussion in the comments below the question.
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MattDMoJul 24 '14 at 18:36

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@MattDMo: I am saying is why is it displayed.
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staticxJul 24 '14 at 18:40

@damryfbfnetsi But once they find out, you'll be forever told to sit and stay.
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Anna Lear♦Aug 12 '14 at 22:58

@AnnaLear Then you ensure that no one knows at all by disconnecting/disabling your computer webcam...after all, there are certain users who are too poor and still access SE services through dial-up internet connections...
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gparyaniAug 12 '14 at 23:01

I agree however that contradicts having a "country" field as well.
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OneOfOneAug 28 '14 at 19:24

In my personal opinion, if your goal is equality, identifying people based on any sort of personal characteristic runs counter to that goal. Why would you even ask what gender a person is?

Stack Exchange: Enter your gender here: _____

Me:What business is that of yours? Why do you even need to know that? Is my gender identity somehow relevant to my participation on Stack Overflow? Why?

The way you achieve equality is not by continually pointing out the differences, but rather by recognizing that things like gender and race don't matter (in terms of a person's character), that the people who think they do are assholes, and that you do everything that you can to remove those barriers that disadvantage people of certain race and gender.

As to your assertion that this is a "food for thought" question and really doesn't have anything to do with you personally, I don't think you can have it both ways. You can't say "I think users should be distinguished by their sex," and then claim that it doesn't matter to you.

For what it's worth, we have two female programmers and a third who does testing on our small staff where I work. They're every bit as capable as the male staff (if not more so) and we don't treat them any differently.

I think this answer started off fine - gender isn't relevant as a recordable field, and programmers as a bunch are suspicious of it. But the suggestions that feminism and affirmative action don't work is a bold and contentious claim. Their purpose is to challenge the existing mechanisms of discrimination historically embedded in society, and they understand that sexism/racism/etc are not going to go away by themselves.
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halferJul 11 '14 at 23:53

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@halfer: That's fine. But where does it end? How do you finally declare success? Mechanisms like that have no place here. We don't treat anybody here any differently because they're female, and we don't give them any special favors because they are, so why do we need to know that about them?
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Robert Harvey♦Jul 11 '14 at 23:55

Of course, if were are to consider whether the anti-oppression movements were a waste of time - and some do, of course - we would have to run the last X years again without their political activism in order to find out. That might be a bit tricky ;-).
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halferJul 11 '14 at 23:55

@halfer: If you believe the news, things haven't gotten all that much better, even with the political activism.
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Robert Harvey♦Jul 11 '14 at 23:57

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The only difference in treatment between a male and female questioner (or answerer) would be in the spelling of pronouns -- he vs she, him vs her -- referring to the person; otherwise, there should be no difference here on Stack Overflow.
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Jonathan LefflerJul 11 '14 at 23:59

I'm happy to take the view that anti-discrimination work has worked - we're having this conversation, after all, which - here in the UK at least - might have been regarded as laughable 50 years ago. The people who've historically benefitted from unevenly distributed power (white, privileged, wealthy, straight, men) did not as a group choose to cede some of that power - they were forced to. How one defines success in this regard is a genuinely difficult question, though - I don't know. We should be aiming for equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.
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halferJul 12 '14 at 0:15

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@halfer It wasn't really my intention to get political, only to point out (albeit with some shock value) how terrible it would be if Stack Exchange became political. I've edited my answer in a way that I believe better conveys my sentiments.
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Robert Harvey♦Jul 12 '14 at 0:18

Yes, it's sometimes hard to have some of these conversations without needing to migrate most of it onto the Politics SE site!
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halferJul 12 '14 at 0:29

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"Why would you even ask what gender a person is?" Why would you even ask what age a person is? Why would you even ask what name a person has? Why would you even ask what location a person is at? Why would you record number of profle views?
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Awal GargJul 12 '14 at 5:08

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@AwalGarg: So many straw men, so little time.
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Robert Harvey♦Jul 12 '14 at 5:10

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Why would I debate several straw men? All I need is a match.
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Robert Harvey♦Jul 12 '14 at 5:13

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@AwalGarg: Counter-question: Why would you ask what race a person is?
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Robert Harvey♦Jul 12 '14 at 5:29

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If you don't agree with this answer, please feel free to downvote @Awal, that's the correct way to show disagreement on meta
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Infinite RecursionJul 12 '14 at 6:11

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@InfiniteRecursion I don't believe and I don't care about what the standard way to do things say. Downvoting doesn't do anything. I was just trying to get more info from Robert, cus I agree with what he says. But, I would like him to answer my questions as well. I am disappointed he took me in fun.
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Awal GargJul 12 '14 at 9:25

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@AwalGarg, to try to answer your questions, my guess is that age can give you an idea of the experience behind the profile (not necessarily reliable), name is just a way to refer to profiles (they're pseudonyms if you want anyway) and location gives you an idea of the time zone (whether they're likely to come back to clarify something soon). Not sure about profile views, and the high precision of last visited time can feel a bit invasive too.
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BrunoJul 18 '14 at 23:21

You could say exactly the same thing about race or racial heritage. If I include a picture of myself, you may be able to determine my skin colour from it. If I include my real name, you may be able to conclude something about the country ties of the people who gave me that name (Kim Lee, Kim Johnson, and Kim Ilgasdottir probably all came from different places, or perhaps married people from different places.) So for some people the information they choose to reveal about themselves in their name and avatar may include race or some sort of marker that correlates well with it, like what country the person or their parents are "from" - a wording that doesn't make any sense if the person is living in the place they're from, but whatever.

As well, people reveal things about themselves in their postings. They self identify as married, or a parent, or employed, or tall, or a mountain climber, or crazy for C++, or a iOS developer. They may deliberately put this in their profile description, or it may just leak out over time as they post on various sites throughout SE. But we don't have dropdowns or checkboxes or radio buttons for race, ethnic heritage, religion, marital status, or opinions on mountains or C++, and nobody asks why not. So it is with gender. It's a piece of information about you. You might want to share it, for whatever reasons of fighting stereotypes or inspiring others, you might want to hide it, and you might happen to share it as part of sharing something you want to share. It's important to me that I post under my real name. From my real name you can learn my gender, and fairly quickly you can learn what continent I live on and how I feel about C++. I'm cool with that, even though that's not why I use my real name. Give me a checkbox and demand to know any of those things about me and I'm way less cool about it.

Why? Because some people want to hide their gender. Because some people don't have a simple answer to the question. Because some people think they know something about me after I answer that question, and they really don't. Yes, some people who don't know as much about first names in the English-speaking world as me might call me by the wrong pronouns sometimes. I'm already on record as only minding that a little, and only correcting it if I have something else to say as well. That's a tiny little irritant compared to demanding private and irrelevant information from everyone instead of letting us all choose what to reveal about ourselves and what not to.

No, it's not the same. Everyone has a clear gender (with exception of people suffering from serious genetic diseases), while racial heritage is something problematic. I have a very clear racial heritage, but if someone has parents from various races, which race does he/she belong? Same with skin colour, some are 'lucky' enough to be clearly white or clearly black but there are so many intermediate values...
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Danubian SailorJan 22 at 7:29

There is an attitude here on Stack Overflow that has always been a vital part of the community since the day I've started coming here. That feel towards "irrelevancy" with questions, answers, and comments is pretty prevalent; dare I even say blasphemous to even be irrelevant. It's their persona that Stack Exchange has where the answer is all we want, and a good question is all that is required. We're not asking for your opinions (unless the question literally asks for an opinion) so why should gender be apart of the discussion?

The community reflects the way Stack Exchange works. I've learned that from day one. No one gives a flying fladoodle if you're African, the princess of Mongolia, or if you're talking dog. The community runs on non-personal (sometimes) Q&A that is driven by the community. You get upvotes for asking good questions and replying with good answers, and downvotes for poor questions and poor answers. You don't get upvotes because you answered a question because you're girl. You don't get upvotes because you can do a backflip into your swimming pool. You get those upvotes for being constructive.

Gender stereotypes are always prevalent in the work place. When you're out and about in the real world and not on Stack Exchange, your gender does matter. I'm not trying to be a misogynistic but the truth is the truth. The modern society, despite its new leniencies towards race and gender, will always have that one boss who refuses to accept you based on gender or race. Maybe when society has been through enough generations of accepting people, that will change.

So why does Stack Exchange not have that option? Your question is pretty interesting to say the least but I think a better question would be, why should gender be apart of Stack Exchange? Gender is simply irrelevant here. If you personalize something, how does it help in constructing questions, comments, and answers? This obviously loops back to the first paragraph I wrote.

Despite that oddity that people will find with seeing gender ambiguity here on Stack Overflow, the ratio between men and women is very uneven. So uneven, I'll find myself putting "his/he/guy" even though if I looked at OP's question, it will say Miranda or Amanda. (hypothetical of course) So when it comes down to answering your question:

Gender is only irrelevant because it is irrelevant. When the situation arises when you need to pull gender away using pronouns and such, then perhaps you'll need to stay gender neutral. If you want to go ahead and pin gender, that's on you. If you accidentally call someone a guy that happens to be a girl, you can just say, "Oops, I can't tell, we're on the internet."

Yeah, I totally get that. I was just kind of curious what the general sentiment was. I didn't expect to get attacked and then defended and create a major debate. I just think it's interesting to consider. Thanks for commenting
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Tai HirabayashiJul 22 '14 at 18:02

Sorry if I sounded rude, I'm simply stating that the community has just floated in a genderless society. Internet communities such as this tend to do that. Social network are the only websites I know of today that go that route. It would seem impractical to impose stereotypes on anything else besides social communities.
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TeknikitsuneJul 22 '14 at 18:09

No no, I didn't mean to imply that you were being rude in any way. I just had a few commenters here be quite mean... Which made me realize how polarized people are about it. I just thought it was an interesting discussion to have. I think I made some people upset :(
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Tai HirabayashiJul 22 '14 at 18:11

Yeah, when you pull the "gender card", that happens. I don't think anyone is upset, I think you just poked a soft spot. Don't get frazzled, in fact, if anything, be glad that you sparked a debate like this.
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TeknikitsuneJul 22 '14 at 18:16

-1 for the suggestion that a 'gender card' has been played - it's just a discussion. I'm not sure gender is irrelevant on Stack Overflow: we've already seen some extremely strong counter-reactions to the suggestion that questions might be edited for gender inclusiveness. Even in the comments, it was suggested the OP has "an attitude".
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halferJul 22 '14 at 22:36

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(Philosophical but helpful aside: I'm wary of any argument that includes the statement "the truth is the truth" in order to, err, prove something - of course most people with an opinion believe they see the truth, but perhaps we would benefit (and I include myself here) by understanding that we might not have the sole access to 'absolute truth' that we think we do.)
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halferJul 22 '14 at 22:37

@Halfer, thank you again.. I really appreciate you standing up for me against the "gender card" / "attitude" talk
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Tai HirabayashiJul 23 '14 at 17:57

@Tai, no problem. I'm intrigued by the psychological dynamics that give rise to it, and I think it might be the subject of a blog post one day, once I've collated my thoughts on it. For example, the counter-reactions I mentioned yesterday are in some cases far too strong to come from the opinion that gender disparity is not a significant problem on the internet (i.e. if it isn't a problem, why get so worked up saying so?). My theory (which isn't meant to offend anyone, lest anyone feel I am aiming at them) is that people voicing these views are reflecting a... [con'd]
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halferJul 23 '14 at 19:28

... deeply-ingrained and subconscious social conservatism. Of course, that some people actually prefer (deliberately or otherwise) the present state of gender inequality may be a factor. Lastly, the view that "there's no problem here" tends to be held by people who hold gender (or race/class/etc) privilege i.e. they don't believe it is exists because they have not personally experienced it. Thus I am torn between critiqueing such perspectives and acknowledging that people cannot always be held entirely responsible for the biases they (inadvertently) project.
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halferJul 23 '14 at 19:29

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@Halfer I think you're definitely on to something. I think in part though that some individuals may benefit from the status quo without knowing. Even if it's not in gender. Ex cissexual, societally normative, (often white, sometimes asian), with growing careers are far less likely to want to system altered. Even if it is subconscious they benefit from equality. I also recognize that I benefit (have, and will continue) to do so. Additionally a lot of people counter issues women face with the fact that men also face issues however I tend to follow Judith Butler's approach that liberating any..
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Tai HirabayashiJul 23 '14 at 19:57

group particularly the lowest of the low benefits everyone in freeing them in turn.
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Tai HirabayashiJul 23 '14 at 19:58

1

+1 for @halfer here. There are times when "this is just how it is" is a perfectly valid argument (like when we respond to bug reports ;)), but in other cases, I think we can all benefit from once in a while challenging (or at least politely questioning) the proverbial status quo. We support and practice equality and acceptance wherever needed here at Stack Exchange. While the society continues on its "there's always that one boss" path (which, unfortunately, is true), there's no reason that has to be reflected in our site policy here on Stack Overflow.
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Anna Lear♦Jul 24 '14 at 1:42

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Having said all that, and taking my "SE employee" hat off for a moment, I have to ask: @Teknikitsune, how come your default in "So uneven, I'll find myself putting "his/he/guy" even though if I looked at OP's question, it will say Miranda or Amanda" is male? If gender doesn't matter, why aren't we defaulting to female or a neutral "they" regardless of usernames? English is partly to blame here, since not being a gendered language it doesn't have an explicitly neutral pronoun, but why is it that so many of us (honestly, myself included if I don't think about it) default to male over female?
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Anna Lear♦Jul 24 '14 at 1:47

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It's a taught societal trait @Anna; a meme (forgive me) in the Dawkian sense. Though both equality and feminism have come a long way since the days of Mary Wollstonecraft the emergence of a gender theory, in Western philosophy, other than that defined by straight white men is a comparatively recent phenomenon. Serious attempts to break the "power" of a binary, hetronormative, Weltanschauung are even more recent. You still say "he" because you've been trained to by hundreds of years of history and because few suggest any different. [contd.]
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BenJul 24 '14 at 12:19

Well what about for a person who defines themselves not as male or female but some other way and wants to disclose it? So the user complains saying that their gender isn't specified but they want it available. Say this gender option gets added. Another person complains, this gets added... before long you end up like Facebook's 70+ genders and I can guarantee that Facebook will be getting complaints daily that people's gender is not listed. The best thing is to be gender neutral and then everybody is treated equally.

Of course there is always the About Me section, within which you are free to write any description about yourself, including your gender.

Asked in all honesty, can you really guarantee that Facebook will get a lot of complaints about omissions from its gender list? I would imagine that someone who had a gender description that was not included would nevertheless appreciate the fact that Facebook has travelled in a very progressive direction.
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halferJul 24 '14 at 14:51

Okay, I can't guarantee it, but it seems likely given the huge number of people who use Facebook.
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dav_iJul 24 '14 at 15:25

Since you are mostly concerned (it seems to me) with the matter of how to correctly refer to someone (i.e. are they a "he" or a "she"), do we actually require a gender field as such in the profile, or just a "what pronouns would you prefer to be called by" field? This allows us to (mostly) avoid the question of what is and isn't a sensible value to be inserted as one's "gender", as well. Just let people indicate that they would prefer to be "he" or "she" or "they" (or other options, if you want).

The original version of this seems to reflect a rather unpleasant and patronising view of people who - for all we know - have medical or legitimate psychological reasons for wishing to be recognised as a particular gender. It's no inconvenience to you, so I don't think there's any justification for claiming that a "brigade" is being "indulged".
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halferJul 24 '14 at 17:25

(Just saw your (now deleted) comment. FWIW, whilst my wording above is carefully chosen, please be aware I am critiquing your (original) choice of language, and my response is not an attack on you personally. Original answers are interesting, in my view, because they perhaps reveal to others how we each think).
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halferJul 24 '14 at 18:58